SET amp owners thread

[spiritofmusic]

Sure Ked.
The Sferas and Hadrons horns that Bill and I heard at The General's were 101-105dB eff, and 211s had to be used w them. Even w 20W on tap rather than 1.46W, I felt they were a tad undercooked.

These horns appealed to me in lots of ways, and something around 50W should work in my room. I'm not sure what tube topology Thomas would advise for just such an amp.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Thomas, true, I very rarely go past 12o/c on my volume dial, that's plenty loud for me. Knowing my Nats are not breaking sweat.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Hi!



I will demo a pair of all silver 46 drive 46 monos at the Munich High End in May. I also plan to build an all silver version of the Push Pull / Differential 46 drive 46 amps for Munich

Best regards

Thomas

Very cool stuff Thomas. What speakers will you be using?

 

[VinylSavor]

Hi!

My intention is to shed some light into the power issue from my experience, which of course is not necessarily the last truth, just my experience.

There is power, headroom, gain and damping factor which all play a role. When you change an amp you typically change at least 3 if not all these factors. Yet the listening results are often only projected onto the power output of the amp. While it might be another factor which plays a role

Thomas, true, I very rarely go past 12o/c on my volume dial, that's plenty loud for me. Knowing my Nats are not breaking sweat.

The setting of the volume control says nothing about the power output. You could be at 1W or at 40W at this setting. Volume control at max does not mean you are at full power output, you could be way beyond and overdrive the amp (which is typically the case) or still not at the limits.

When comparing amps and there are different sound preferences it is worthwhile to dig deeper and understand what it is that brings the better sound of one variant.

I recall for example that the general uses a very low output cartridge. that's why I built another phono stage for him with more gain. He reported better sound with that. Now the 211 amp has more gain than the 46. When going further with gain increases in other areas the benefits of the 211 might be achieved with the 46 as well.

Just some food for thought.

BR

Thomas

 

[spiritofmusic]

Sure Thomas, read beyond the headlines. Useful in a world plagued by Fake News.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Thomas, unfortunately at this stratified level of gear, it's harder and harder to get auditions or simply make predictions.

So a pair of 101-105dB eff horns in a 75 sq m/170 cub m space, how do you start to gauge whether 46, 45, 2A3, 211/845/300B is the appropriate choice?

 

[Lagonda]

I should get one of those Airtangent Mig is using.

Tang

I think Ron is going to try a Bergman arm on his AS 2000.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Keep it on the QT, don't tell Dave.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I think Ron is going to try a Bergman arm on his AS 2000.

True! The current plan for one of the cartridge/tonearm combinations is Opus 1 on Bergmann Odin on AS-2000.

 

[Lagonda]

True! The current plan for one of the cartridge/tonearm combinations is Opus 1 on Bergmann Odin on AS-2000.

In some aspects i prefer my linear tracker to the 3012R, on my high mass
air-bearing TT. Then again, my 3012R was not set up by ddk.

 

[VinylSavor]

Thomas, unfortunately at this stratified level of gear, it's harder and harder to get auditions or simply make predictions.

So a pair of 101-105dB eff horns in a 75 sq m/170 cub m space, how do you start to gauge whether 46, 45, 2A3, 211/845/300B is the appropriate choice?

At a certain point you need to try yourself to find what fits your choice of compromises the best. Also try to look behind the numbers. There is no standard for example how to specify the sensitivity of a speaker. There is a lot of room to wiggle the numbers. I have seen speakers with claimed 98dB sensitivity which dropped way below 90 db in the upper bass region. Also the impedance curve of the speaker is important if you want to use SET amps. SET amps prefer a load which does not vary excessively over frequency and which does not drop to low.

The same with power output. There is no standard how to measure the max power of an amp. An amp can produce 20W at 1kHz but does drop to 5 at 30Hz.

Also SET amps typically have low damping factors. Going even as low as 2 is not uncommon. I try to stay at 5 or more. Some speakers need a good damping factor and others actually sound better with a low damping factor.

And so on and on...

 

[SETDrugs]

You can Ron, depends on room and volume demands.

New member here SETDrugs is running 98dB eff 16 Ohm Zu Soul Supremes off Mayer 1.46W tubes.

Albeit in his bedroom at moderate levels.

Marc,

I actually have Mayer 45/ 2a3 power amp that has been modified by him to also run 46 but only on high impedance speakers. Audiophile Bill has the dedicated 46 amp.

Even though the 46 is more then enough power in my bedroom, right now I'm using the JJ2A3 and it sounds really good to my ears considering cost compared to other modern 2a3. It has a lot of attributes of 46 but with more power.

So basically if the room isn't too big and the person don't listen too crazy loud, Zu speakers are perfectly capable of giving all tone, emotion, transparency , and musicality that one can hope to achieve for a speaker of that size and cost.

I've gone through a bunch of speakers ( not to mention amp and preamp) over the years and the Zu have remained the one constant that has been around as I added the Mayer amp and preamp to my now dream system. The end of road for me. The only change I may possibly do in future would be if Sean came out with the successor to Supreme because I far prefer it's looks and form factor to Druid.

 

[bonzo75]

Kedar, I think it is great that you like the KRs (I am sure I would like them too), but isn’t that largely another way of saying that you like a transistor input stage and a tube output stage?

Of course KR uses their selected components and circuit topologies but I wonder if you could achieve largely the same sonic result by combining a hybrid line stage or an all-transistor line stage with an all-tube amp.

Putting it differently I guess I feel less black and white about what is good and what is bad, and what works with what and what doesn’t work with what, than it seems you do. I feel there are only so many ways to slice and dice amplification chains and circuit topologies to achieve a desired level of total gain and desired sound, and, while many things sound slightly different or materially different, I wonder if our subjective preferences and component matching combinations often account for greater variability than the differences in similar circuit topologies themselves.

Ron I just gave many examples, the Nats are show for me, slow transients, less nuances. Bill and G found the same in their compares. A lot of it was different gear matching. As far as I know your experience comes from many years ago of Nat with analysis, and at Marc's place. No KR experience. I have zero doubt KR is better than Nat. I can think of other amps better than KR, but almost all for lower power, or easier to drive applications on the SET side. I will add my KR vs Allnic comments when I do my write up. I will write in detail on KR va 200 too

 

[bonzo75]

Also, reading 6 moons on Zus, as well as what 213cobra, Keith, recommend, Marc will be better off with sub 30s amp. 211s or silvercore 833c 20w.

 

[KeithR]

The interesting thing was comparing Devore to Cessaro Wagner. The latter sounded better with more power of push pull EL34 34w compared to 300b 10w (Airtight amps). The Devore sounded better with lesser power. The lesser power increased nuance. So in the Wagner I was giving up nuance to get it to sound better, as I was increasing power, because there were other aspects such as energy and drive that were otherwise lacking. With devore energy and drive with 10w was not an issue, so the single ended, 10w could be used to increase nuance.

Interesting - as I will be hearing the Wagner 2 with Tron 300b presumably in mid-April. That's all the distributor here demos (imports)

 

[KeithR]

Please allow me to disagree. I can custom build power amps even exceeding the 25W of my SE 845. I have large transmitting tubes which could offer up to150W in SE. Also if accepting the compromises associated with paralleling tubes 50W from 2 845s would not be a problem. It is all a matter of budget and size constraints.

Hi Thomas, how does your 845 tube sound compared with a transmitter tube?

 

[morricab]

Sure Ked. These things are all matters of degree rather than absolutes, system synergy, personal preferences.

E.g. in my system back in London, Audion Black Shadows 845 had the edge over Nat on transparency and delicacy. But the Nat SE2SEs 211 beat the Audion on heft, timing, tonal density.

In the new room which is nowhere near as acoustically challenging, the Nats open up an even bigger gap to the Audions. But that's not to say the Audions are significantly inferior, just slightly higher/lower swings & rounder roundabouts.

I fully agree that the Mayer is at a greater level of fidelity and "not there-ness". But in the real world where spkrs cannot hope to compete w 120dB eff Pnoes and Swings in rooms significantly bigger than Bill's, Blue58's, whatever Zone One shoebox you end up in, the mid- to higher-power alternatives of Nat and KR are really the only ones to consider surely.

And Nat entered my orbit because of my dealer contact, no compare to KR was on my mind, or even easily available if it had been.

Ked, put it this way. I heard the Nats when I bought my Straingauge. Despite going on to buy the Audions, the memory of what they uniquely brought to the sonic picture was w me for a whole two years until I was compelled to sort the home demo. I bought the Nats that day, and despite Audion introduction to "The Joy Of SETs" as my entry in 2013 into an all-tubes amp chain, I haven't thought once about them since selling them on.

I beg to differ that NAT and KR are the only higher powered SETs to consider.

 

[bonzo75]

I beg to differ that NAT and KR are the only higher powered SETs to consider.

What else do you have over 100 watts/

 

[VinylSavor]

Hi Thomas, how does your 845 tube sound compared with a transmitter tube?

Not sure what you mean? The 845 is a transmitter tube

 

[GMKF]

What else do you have over 100 watts/

Wavac.